so
hi and welcome to cck live i'm bethany cook and with me today is brandon piva and emma peterson
in today's video we're going to discuss va survivors benefits claims
so we'll start by just explaining what survivor's benefits are the department of veterans affairs
offers certain benefits to eligible surviving spouses children and parents of deceased veterans
there are certain requirements that you have to meet in order to qualify as an eligible surviving
spouse child or parent so if you do believe that you meet those requirements you can confirm that
by reviewing the criteria on va's website as we're not going to get into that today but moving on va
survivors benefits they include dependency and indemnity compensation or dic for short
as well as survivor's pension and burial benefits today we're going to talk specifically about dic
and survivor's pension but we do have other videos available especially talking about burial benefits
as well if you're interested brandon did you want to start us off with an overview of dic
absolutely so i'll define sort of the framework of what dic is and how to apply
for it and generally speaking what one would have to show to qualify for these benefits so
like bethany had stated um in the opening of the cck live we're going to be talking
about dependency and indemnity compensation or dic for short essentially dic is a tax-free
monthly benefit afforded to surviving spouses children and dependent parents of veterans
whose death was related to military service or was due to a service connected condition now
in order to apply for dic benefits you typically have to use what's called the va form 21p 534ez
that's a tongue twister but rest assured you can find this form on va's website if you just
go to va.gov and search for dic or dic benefits you'll be able to pull up a fillable pdf form
and you'll be able to fill in the information there in order to apply for these benefits
now importantly survivors are not paid the same monthly amount that the veteran was receiving
at the time of their death so we do want to have sort of a distinction between a service-connected
disability or service-connected compensation that a veteran receives monthly and what
these dic benefits are dic has its own exclusive rates which can be found on va's website as well
if you go to va disability.gov you can typically like i said just search for survivor benefits
or survivor dic rates and that should be able to point you in the right direction
in order for survivors to qualify for dic veterans and service members must meet one of
the following criteria essentially the service member had to have died while on active duty
active duty training or inactive duty training or the veteran had passed away due
to a service-connected condition or the veterans service connected death was not service related
but the veteran was entitled to receive va disability compensation for a totally disabling
condition like tdiu for a period of at least 10 years prior to their death or since released
from active duty and for a period of at least five years prior to the veteran's death or for at least
one year before the veteran's death if the veteran was a former pow or who died after september 30th
1999. so there's a lot of different criteria in a lot of different ways that a veterans survivor
can qualify for these benefits so we would definitely advise to double check this information
on va's website we're going to cover a lot of information here so we unfortunately can't dive
into the specifics totally um but hopefully that provides you with just a general framework now
for surviving spouses children and parents they must also meet the criteria to qualify for dic
as well now dic versus accrued benefits so there's a distinction between what dependency and
indemnity compensation is as compared to what accrued benefits are it's important to note that
the difference between dic and accrued benefits is that accrued benefits are benefits that are
due but not paid prior to a veteran's death so hypothetically speaking if the veteran had a
claim for service connection for ptsd pending or an appeal for service connection for ptsd
pending and he or she had passed away during their time and the spouse was substituted in
as the claimant in a crude benefits claim would be once the spouse is substituted in va would
have to issue a decision on the appeals that we're claiming at the veterans uh time of death
if he should have been afforded dic benefits then the spouse would have been paid those accrued
benefits so that's what a crude is which is very different than dic this is not considered death or
survivors benefits since they were owed to the veteran before their death when we're talking
about accrued essentially based on the veteran's entitlement and not the survivor's entitlement
is what is going to determine whether the survivor is also going to be entitled to accrued benefits
essentially what we're trying to say is dic benefits are based on the eligible survivor's
claim that the veteran died of a condition caused by service whereas accrued benefits stem from the
veterans claim itself so hopefully that helps with a little bit of a distinction between what the ic
is and what accrued benefits are great thank you brandon and i know that we do have other cck lives
talking specifically about accrued benefits and how to apply for those after a veteran's
death as well but dic is a very important benefit because it's the only monthly compensation benefit
available to a veteran surviving dependents but if you don't qualify for dic survivor's
pension might be an alternative emma could you tell us a little bit about survivor's pension
of course so va's survivor's pension program is a tax-free needs-based um financial benefit
that's reserved for low-income surviving spouses and children of deceased veterans with wartime
service and that's the key the veteran does not have to be service connected for
any conditions while they were alive for their dependents to qualify for the survivor's pension
instead the service requirements of the veteran not not the survivors but the veteran must meet
those who served prior to 1980 september 1980 must have served for at least 90 days
of active duty service with at least one day during a war time period
veterans who served after september 1980 must have served for two years um or the
time frame which they are ordered to service with one day being during wartime period
and the veteran must have been discharged under conditions other than dishonorable
so again this is really reserved for veterans with wartime service as opposed to the dac
benefit is for any veteran so that's what the veteran requirements are for the actual survivors
they have to meet a low income standard so they must have an income limit in order to be eligible
and their income must be less than the amount set by congress so if eligible the amount of
the benefit received with the difference between your countable income and the annual pension limit
accountable income includes things like earnings disability and retirement including
social security interest and dividends and any net income from a business and also unimersed
medical expenses are those medical expenses that are not covered by your insurance so
those are factored into your annual income for the pension limit so again it's a needs-based program
for war decedents excuse me survivors of war-time veterans um so if interested in learning
more about survivors pension we certainly have blog posts about this on our website
and you can reach out to an accredited rap agent a vso an attorney to talk more about whether or
not you qualify for survivor's pension thank you emma and i'll just uh briefly go over how
to apply for both of these benefits if you do believe you are eligible so like brandon
said before the formal application to submit a claim for va survivor benefits is the form 21p
534 ez or application for dic death pension and or occurred benefits uh and like brandon said you
can find this form on va's website and once you have the form completed in its entirety uh you
can mail it to the pension management center that serves your state which is listed on va's website
or you can visit your local regional office and turn in your application for processing in person
keep in mind that there might be additional forms that you do need to file depending on what other
benefits you're seeking so you can check out cck's other videos on accrued benefits or va's website
for more information on when and what other forms in addition to the 534 that you're going to need
to file the process is very confusing even just the process of making sure you have the right
forms can be complicated so you might need help brandon could you tell us when someone might want
a representative to assist them in this process absolutely just to reiterate what bethany had just
stated you know dic or crude benefits survivors pensions these claims can also be very difficult
to navigate and to be quite frank they often take a long time for dic alone we need to know if the
veteran had passed away due to service-connected condition was he or she rated totally disabling
for 10 years prior to his or her death when do i qualify do i have any accrued pending were there
any claims or appeals pending before the veteran had passed there's a lot of sort of um there's a
lot of things that need to go into this in order to determine if a veteran um you know had all
these things and if his spouse or her spouse would qualify for any of these benefits so it might
be beneficial to seek assistance from a veteran service organization a va accredited claims agent
or a va accredited attorney seeking assistance can ensure that all the proper forms are completed and
necessary evidence is submitted and it can also ensure that whoever you're seeking assistance
from is also trying to maximize the benefits for what you may qualify for again you may qualify for
dic and accrued you may qualify for one you may qualify for both you may qualify for just pension
um so sort of seeking assistance is almost recommended especially dealing with you know kind
of a confusing um kind of process when it comes to after a veteran passes away the accredited
advocates at cck we've used our knowledge and you know years and years of experience to assist
numerous survivors with their claims and we might be able to help you as well so if you
feel like you may qualify for these benefits what i would do is i would reach out to cck as soon as
possible in order to see if this is something that we may be able to offer assistance and see if this
is something that we might be able to help you out with thank you and that's all the information that
we had today um so thank you all for tuning in um like we've said a few times more information on
survivors benefits and dic can be found on our blog and you're also welcome to check out our
other videos and subscribe to our youtube channel um for additional information and as always
if you are interested in seeing additional videos please don't forget to follow us on social media
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